Cheryl Pallant

Cheryl Pallant (born in New York City) is a poet, author, dancer, healer, and professor who lives in Richmond, Virginia.

While a literature student at Long Island University, she was introduced to the dance form, contact improvisation.

Her books, such as Into Stillness and Uncommon Grammar Cloth, demonstrate a kinetic poetics guided by an internal momentum that expands upon the possibilities of language and challenges the usual logical mode of reading.

1 Laura Page, writing about the poetry collection, Her Body Listening, says Pallant is “stripping away artifice in language, leaving the inimitable understanding of the body as it processes social proscriptions... the creative impulse, trauma, shame, and joy.” 2 She was performance art critic for High Performance and dance critic for Style Weekly, a newspaper in Virginia.

Pallant won the Theresa Pollak Prize (2013) and was a three-time recipient of a NEH Grant (2000, 1999, and 1996) in partnership with the Richmond Arts Council.